The Electoral Tribunal of the Judicial Power of the Federation (TEPJF) approved a significant change in the electoral process, deciding that polling officials will no longer be responsible for conducting the scrutiny and counting of votes at the closure of polling stations during the election of the Judicial Power. Instead, the ballots will be transferred to district boards, where electoral officials will handle the counting.
In a session that lasted nearly two hours, the TEPJF plenary demonstrated internal divisions, but ultimately the majority block supporting the new sectional polling model proposed by the National Electoral Institute (INE) prevailed.
The challenges to the agreement argued that moving the counting to district boards jeopardized the democratic principle that the initial count should be carried out by citizens designated as polling officials. It was also pointed out that the Constitution and the General Law of Electoral Institutions and Procedures (LEGIPE) do not grant the INE the authority to conduct the initial scrutiny of votes. However, the project presented by Judge Felipe Fuentes Barrera received majority support on the grounds that the INE has the authority to regulate counting procedures, summations, and computations, and that transferring these tasks to district venues does not affect the certainty of the electoral process.
The new model also includes the installation of a single ballot box for all ballots, which will streamline the procedure, although it has generated criticism due to concerns about mixing votes from federal and local elections in a single container.
With this resolution, the TEPJF reaffirms the authority of the INE to define the operational mechanisms of the electoral process in order to ensure greater efficiency and certainty in the results of the election of judges, magistrates, and ministers on June 1, 2025.
